The purpose of this ILO report is to give a better understanding of the socio-economic root causes as well as a new assessment of the profits of forced labour. It highlights how forced labour thrives in the incubator of poverty and vulnerability, low levels of education and literacy, migration and other factors. The evidence and results presented in this report illustrate the need for stronger measures of prevention and protection and for enhanced law enforcement as the basic responses to forced labour. At the same time, it also provides new knowledge of the determinants of forced labour that can help with developing and expanding policies and programmes to not only stop forced labour where it exists, but prevent it before it occurs.

Credit: International Labour Office (ILO) Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL) Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work Branch (FPRW)